Every year, more Australians are injured at work than on our roads. Some injuries are visible. Others are psychological and unseen. Yet we rarely talk about what happens afterwards.
Filmed across Australia over more than three years, Shattered discovers that understanding rarely comes from reports alone. Sometimes it comes from the places where people live, work, remember and rebuild.
Across generations, the questions remain remarkably human: What helps people recover? What have we learned? And how do we create workplaces and communities where people continue to belong after injury?
At its heart is one simple question:
What happens after work changes a life?
Episode One: Origins of Control
Communities of Care: Why do we have these systems?
Shattered begins in Lithgow, one of the industrial towns that helped build modern Australia, before travelling through Cobar and Wollongong. What begins as a personal search becomes an exploration of the historical, social and political forces that shaped how Australia responds when work changes a life — and the communities that cared for people long before formal systems existed.
Episode Two: Doctor Doctor
Healing systems: making recovery safer and more human.
Across NSW, Victoria, Queensland and the ACT, Doctor Doctor brings together people with lived experience and expert insight. If asbestos was a defining occupational health crisis of the late twentieth century, psychological injury may be the crisis of the 2020s. The episode asks whether systems understand the grief and loss following injury—and create space for people to heal.
Screenings are being developed for workplaces, universities, healthcare settings, faith communities and local groups.
2
Reflect
Use guided questions to explore how injury affects people, families and communities — and what care requires.
3
Respond
Host conversations that strengthen understanding, connection and support when people need it most.
Why We Made Shattered
Across Australia, we visited memorials to people who went to work and never came home. Each was created by a community carrying grief across generations.
These places reminded us of the responsibility that comes with telling this story. Through Shattered, we seek to honour those who lost their lives, those changed by injury, and the families and communities who live with the consequences.
Episode One - Origins of Control
Workplace injury has always carried a human and family cost.
In towns like Lithgow, where coal mines, railways and steelworks powered a young nation, families and communities often carried that burden together.
Episode One explores how Australia's response to workplace injury evolved over time. As systems become more complex, what happens to care?
01
Environmental Analysis
Examine wider community and identify audiences and assumptions playing into existing narrative. Fact Check. Is it true?
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Strategic Storytelling
Facts tell, stories sell. As necessary correct the backstory with facts, evidence and stories.
03
Show New Story
People are wired for stories. Use memes, images, metaphors and channels of communication that resonate with audience. Keep it human and authentic.
04
Journey With New Story
It takes time to change a dysfunctional story. Stay the course. Measure and adjust. Build collaborative partnerships of care to embed new story.
Our Framework
We are currently fact checking a number of ambiguous and inconsistent issues that we have identified across other platforms to clarify. Accordingly, this website will be updated on a regular basis so please check back. If you have information that you would like us to consider, please use the contact page and we will be in touch. We appreciate your time.
Evidence-Informed. Non-Partisan.
Shattered is an independent documentary grounded in social history, parliamentary material, and regulatory records.
It is not aligned with any political party or institution.
Its purpose is clarity — and to help people better understand what happens after workplace injury.
#shattereddoco
Episode Two - Doctor, Doctor
Workplace injury changes more than health. It can reshape identity, family life and connection to work—and places enormous pressure on those providing and receiving care.
From the legacy of asbestos to the growing challenge of psychological injury, Doctor Doctor brings healthcare professionals, lived experience, families and support groups into one conversation.
What happens to healing when care and contest collide—and how can we make recovery safer and more human?
Private pre-screenings September 2026 · Available October 2026
